updated 06:20 pm EDT, Wed April 2, 2008

Apple campus

Apple has been planning a second business campus in Cupertino for some time now, but completion of the project may take a little longer than originally planned by CEO Steve Jobs. Two years ago, at a Cupertino City Council meeting, Jobs announced that Apple put together several pieces of land about a mile from its current campus and decided to break ground on the new location as a new separate but connected set of buildings. At the time, Jobs said "It'll take us, you know, three or four years to design it, get all the approvals and get it built." However, two years after the announcement, Apple has not applied for any permits to build on the land, according to Fortune.

Apple is reportedly expanding its Cupertino campus by taking possession of buildings abandoned by HP, and in some cases is knocking down the old structures to construct new ones. Apple is hiring new staff every week to fill the new areas of the campus, since Steve Jobs does not wish to move the headquarters outside of Cupertino. HP's old buildings have painted-over signs, with addresses still written in HP's typical company font; some signs have been finished, bearing the unmistakable grey logo.

What's happened at Apple is that our business has basically tripled in the last five or six years," said Jobs at the Cupertino Council meeting. "We've gone from $6 billion in sales to a $20 billion in sales. And what that's meant is that our headcount in Cupertino has dramatically expanded."

Because of its 30 year history in the city, Apple chose to stay in Cupertino. The new campus will be approximately a mile away from the current location at Infinite Loop.

take it from me

If there is one thing you can count on, it's delays in construction time. Something will ALWAYS go not according to plan, and take more time. I very much doubt that Stevo has ANY construction management experience, so you really can't go by what he would say alone. Yes, he could have gotten information from professionals in the field, but the wide-ranging guess makes it seem like he didn't.

Take it from someone who sees jobs go up in every state, Cali regulations and the state's wonderful oversight boards like OSHPD add at least 2 years to major construction projects like campuses for hospitals, or, perhaps, major corporations. If it's not a strip mall, don't expect any seriously planned project to go up quickly on that particular cost.